Healing circles offered a space for people to process the Armory stampede. Here's how.

In the aftermath of a crowd surge at the Main Street Armory that claimed the lives of three and injured many more ― both physically and mentally ― Melanie Funchess said some community members were quick to replace empathy with blame toward the concert-goers who were mostly people of color.

“If you looked online the day after it happened, people were talking about ― you see, those people can’t do anything,” Funchess said. “There was no violence. It was just a horrendous tragedy.”

A GloRilla concert March 5 ended with attendees rushing for the exits because they thought they heard gunshots, police said. They found no evidence that anyone fired a gun, though the city is still investigating the cause of the deadly stampede.

The latest: Renowned civil rights attorney to represent family of Armory concert victim

Funchess, a long-time mental health professional, said she knew she needed to step in to counter the negative social media chatter and provide a space for healing.

“The processing of the trauma is usually happening like now,” Funchess said in an interview two weeks after the concert. “But in the beginning, it’s important that our communities see that we see you. You are not alone. We hear you. We know this is not your fault.”

Before the week’s end, Funchess and her network of mental health providers had arranged a series of Ubuntu Healing Circles ― an approach to mental health support that relies on the collective, rather than the individual.

The Black-only healing circles are rooted in African traditions and values, Funchess said, and are part of her ongoing work to build an ecosystem of culturally-informed wellness services for Rochester’s Black community.

She admits the approach is still unfamiliar to most, so the Democrat and Chronicle asked her to help explain exactly what a healing circle is.

Below are excerpts from an interview with Funchess, edited for length.

Q: What are healing circles?

A: Healing circles are spaces that are created for people to be able to process and really just receive healing from being in community and being able to share their experiences, how it has landed on them, how they’re feeling about what’s going on ― and be validated and affirmed, but to also to be able to find ways to cope, to move through.

You don’t get over these things, you move through them. When you’re doing healing, it doesn’t mean the thing goes away, it means that it becomes integrated into your body of experiences.

Q: How — and why — are healing circles different than other mental health services?

A: There’s a gentleman named Edwin Nichols who did this thing called The Philosophical Aspects of Cultural Difference, and in this he talks about different cultural groups and breaks out their axiology, which is the study of value.

For people of the African diaspora, our axiology, our greatest value is in relationships. Relationships between persons. We work in collective.

The challenge is our systems don’t operate this way. Our systems tell us, you go to therapy by yourself, you sit on the couch, you talk about yourself and you and your thing. But for us, everything is a relationship to our relationships. So, the circle is part of that. When you have your challenges, you have your illness, you have your grief, you bring it to the elders and you bring it to the circle and things are worked out in the circle.

But because we are in a place where we are not the dominant culture here, that is not something that you’re taught. We’re trying to reintroduce some of these ways back to our folks because we know them, we do them, we just don’t give them names. This is ancestral knowledge that we are bringing forth to help aid us in healing.

Q: What does a healing circle look like?

(Community Healing Network developed two kinds of circles: Emotional Emancipation Circles are a series of seven sessions that focus on healing racial pain. Ubuntu Healing Circles are stripped down, one-off circles that typically respond to a certain situation or event. Both are led by facilitators over a two-hour session.)

A: All of the seats will be in a circle. Usually there’s two facilitators, they’ll both be at one side of the circle. Typically you’d have refreshments and food. You would see tables dressed with African fabrics. Someone may have a candle. In our circles, we would have a plant and water because we would pour libation. Libation is giving honor to those who have passed on.

Then we’ll go into our circle. We’ll talk about what healing circles are, set the stage and create a safe space for people to really be able to be and talk and process what happened. And then we talk.

Q: When did this work take root in Rochester?

A: In 2015, after we had Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, the whole series of those deaths, we knew we needed something but we didn’t know what it was. One of the Black Lives Matter activists that we had here moved to D.C. and she calls me and she says, ‘Momma Mel, you know we were talking about this healing thing? There’s these things here called EECs ― emotional emancipation circles. That’s what we need.’ She sent me the information and they were exactly what we were looking for. But it took me until 2019 to find somebody to fund it. And since then, we’ve been running EECs basically since 2020.

Q: What’s next for healing circles?

A: In partnership with the Greater Rochester Black Agenda Group we are hosting a circle on April 10. People can register and come be part of the circle and see what a circle is like ― and if this is something you feel you can get with, then we will have more opportunities for you to go forward with circles coming from there.

For more information, email emancipateROC@gmail.com.

Kayla Canne reports on community justice and safety efforts for the Democrat and Chronicle. Get in touch at kcanne@gannett.com or on Twitter @kaylacanne.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Healing circles offer support after deadly Main Street Armory concert